Can You Get Divorced in England After Moving Abroad?

There a many reasons why a person may wish to get divorced in England despite leaving the country some time ago. Often this is because a party anticipates they would obtain a more advantageous financial settlement here compared to the outcome they would receive under the laws of the country where they are living.

However you cannot simply chose to get divorced in England and Wales and even if you celebrated your marriage under English and Welsh law, it does not automatically means you can get divorced here. To get divorced under the laws of England and Wales, you must be either habitually resident or domiciled in England and Wales.

Habitual residence, in very broad terms, is determined by where you live  – do you live in England and Wales in a fixed or permanent way? If you left the country some time ago and have not lived here since, this may be difficult to establish.

The second ground is to establish you are domiciled in England and Wales. Domicile can be a tricky concept but as the recent case of Ferrara v Ferrara shows, it can be used as a means to establish jurisdiction even if you left the country many years ago.

This case concerns Mrs Ferrara, an Australian and Mr Ferrara, an Italian. She moved to England with her parents in 1992 and remained living here despite her parents returning to Australia in 1995.  Mr Ferrara also moved to England in 1992. They met in 2006 and married in Italy in 2008 but immediately returned to London. In 2019 Mr Ferrara moved to Italy, with Mrs Ferrara and their children joining him later that year. They lived in Milan ever since and sold the family home in London in 2023. The parties separated in 2023 and Mrs Ferrara filed for divorce in England in 2024. Throughout the proceeding until the hearing in 2026, the parties remained living in Italy.

Despite not living here since 2019, Mrs Ferrara contended that she could file her divorce application in England on the basis that she was domiciled in England. Mr Ferrara disputed this, alleging that she was never domiciled in England but even if she was, she had lost her domicile when she moved to Italy.

Everybody has a domicile, which starts with the domicile acquired at birth known as a domicile or origin. This is largely based on the domicile of your father at the time you were born. A person can change their domicile to a domicile of choice by residing in a different country to that of their domicile of origin and having an intention to live there indefinitely and permanently.

As Mrs Ferrara could not show she was habitually resident in England, having left in 2019. She had to establish that she was domiciled here. She had to show that she was domiciled in England in the first place, with England either being her domicile of origin (based on the domicile of her father and grandfather), or her domicile of choice. She then had to show that she had not lost her domicile when she moved to England. She succeeded on both points:

The judge found that she had acquired a domicile of choice in England at some point between 1995 and 2019 on the basis that she was living here during this time and had an intention to permanently  and indefinitely remain here. He came to that conclusion based on a number of findings including:

• She turned 18 whilst living here and anchored her life here. She did not decide to return to Australia with her parents but instead lived uninterrupted in England for 18 years
• England is the country which she has the closest connections to and this was the case throughout her married life
• Her modelling career was based in London
• Her closest friends are in England
• Overall, every aspect of her life demonstrated a permanent commitment to living in England.

The judge then found that she did not lose her domicile of choice of England when she moved to Italy. Whilst she was living in Italy, the judge found that she did not have an intention to permanently or indefinitely live there. The judge found that she reluctantly moved to Italy, at the behest of her husband, so whilst she did not refuse to go, she did not have a settled intention to live there permanently. On appeal, the court agreed that it found Mrs Farrara to have considered her move to Italy to be temporary and that she had an intention to return to England at some point. She therefore did not have the intention to permanently or indefinitely reside in Italy so had not changed her domicile of choice. As she remained domiciled in England, she could start her divorce here.

This case serves as a reminder that even though a couple has not lived here for many years, they may still be able to divorce as long as they have not lost their domicile by acquiring a new domicile of choice. Cases will be fact specific, but examples of when this may be relevant include a couple who have moved to Dubai for a few years to benefit from tax free income but intend to return to the UK at some point, perhaps once they have a deposit to buy a house. Or a family who decide to live abroad to experience life in a different country for a few years but without intending that country to be their permanent home.